Arduino stuff/ programing/so cheap

[h4nd]

Good troubleshooting steps here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ch340-drivers/all#troubleshooting

[Hyperblade]

2 hours ago, h4nd said:

I saw this at work, plugged in a clone, and the regulator erupted in a tiny volcano. Generally they've been pretty good though.

Most the Nano clones I've got have CH340C. Here's what I've got for a MEGA2560 with CH340G

update: just checked - yes it does actually connect and upload Ok.

 

 

2 hours ago, h4nd said:

Yonks ago there was a foofaraw where FTDI didn't like the clones, and borked and earlier driver to nobble the CH340's. There was some bad feelings about that, I think later version became more sane again. May want to check/remove the FTDI, test, maybe re-install it later?

Oh, oh dear.

 

2 hours ago, h4nd said:

Good troubleshooting steps here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ch340-drivers/all#troubleshooting

Thanks, but I've lost my patience with it. I'll just buy a genuine one, the amount of time I've spent on it now has far exceeded the price difference and the aggravation is so not worth it.

You can have this one, odds are it will work perfectly for you especially if you have drivers already installed.

[Roman]

Out of interest @Hyperblade what is the project? 

I'm assuming car related 😃

[Hyperblade]

11 hours ago, Roman said:

Out of interest @Hyperblade what is the project? 

I'm assuming car related 😃

Hah, yes but virtual.

I'm sim racing online at the moment, and you can buy rumble kits for the pedals (e.g. so the pedals vibrate when ABS kicks in)

https://www.sim-3d.co.uk/product/pedal-rumble-motor-kit/6?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=11

I thought surely I can do it cheaper.

No coding required as the software SimHub (https://www.simhubdash.com/) manages the install to the Arduino then the communication to it.

So was originally just a simple

• 3D Print some brackets for the motors
• 3D Print the box to hold it the Arduino and Motor shield.
• Wire it all.
• Plug it in and watch it work.

Turns out trying to do everything on the cheap wasn't the best plan.

That and wiring the motors does my head in, why would you give the contacts the smallest gap to the spinning weight???

 

[Hyperblade]

On 24/02/2025 at 19:44, Hyperblade said:

Thanks, but I've lost my patience with it. I'll just buy a genuine one, the amount of time I've spent on it now has far exceeded the price difference and the aggravation is so not worth it.

You can have this one, odds are it will work perfectly for you especially if you have drivers already installed.

Genuine one just arrive ($30 delivered from within nz), 30s later software is all successfully loaded via SimHub (I had Arduino IDE and drivers already installed).

If your thinking about playing around with Arudinos, spend the extra $10 and get the genuine one and save wasting time on dealing with the drivers.

@h4nd Was serious about giving you the clone, I'm sure you can find a use for it if it is working correctly. Next time I see you will give it to you (unless you want it earlier for something just let me know.)

[h4nd]

Good to know, when I first looked at them, they were $80 ish.

I use $3 Arduino Nano clones for lots of stuff at the mo.

Want a screw terminal shield?

[Hyperblade]

1 hour ago, h4nd said:

Good to know, when I first looked at them, they were $80 ish.

I use $3 Arduino Nano clones for lots of stuff at the mo.

Want a screw terminal shield?

That's good to know, this particular project I needed Simhub to support it so they had a list of versions they required which the nano wasn't on it.

I'm good on shield, went with a Adafruit clone so that should work with the motors for the amps required, haven't run it yet as I need to re print housing for USB A port.

[h4nd]

Oh, in VisualMicro (the awesome extension for MS VisualStudio to do Arduino), the debugger (yes, debugger! - lets you set breakpoints, read variable value etc), works waaay better when you set your compiler to from Release to Debug.

Who'd a thunk?

[h4nd]

I was checking out some power management on a little baby SAMD10 microcontroller.

They run great at 48MHz only ~4mA, I was running it at 8MHz because solar, and it sleeps overnight.

How low can you go?

2Hz. Yep, LoL.

Tick.

Tock.

[h4nd]

So, I have an Arduino Due (bigger processor) recording some data for a client, and I need to know if I can record GPS/GNSS/IMU data at 10 readings a second, or 30, or 100 (a couple of hundred bytes per message, because lots of options, position, heading, pitch, roll, yaw, rates, blah blah blah).

I just banged a cheap AliEx SD module ( $0.47 now https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/32938935724.html)

on the SPI port per the docs, expecting to get a little more than  4-5 kB per second like OpenLog and Arduino, and expecting to have to get sneaky as shit to speed it up.

Nope. ~100kB/s, right out of the box. 

[h4nd]

LoL, enough data in 5 min that the spreadsheet has started making my PC barf its guts up

[h4nd]

What's better than 1W dome LEDs? Why, arrays of them as status indicators.

I'll be able to show daylight visible cross, square,circle, and spinning line animations etc.

 

[h4nd]

I burped this out on Sunday 5th.  USD$24 using a $6 first timer voucher! (NZD$41) fro 150 x 150mm.

Oh! that hit Aucks on Thurs 8th using the cheap 11-15 days shipping, is in town today!

[h4nd]

I needed a 10% random signal at about 100Hz (average count about 10 per second)

void setup() {
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN , !random(9));
  delay(10);
}

Job done.

[h4nd]

I had some code that just wasn't playing well. It was interrupt code running in someone else's environment (Arduino), so that's just about par for the course.

I spent all night and failed.

Today, I had a fresh look and figured out it was problems interfering with each other that made it intermittent and really hard to diagnose:

• Arduino Due doesn't use the usual way to assign whatever interrupt # is assigned to a pin, like this:
  • // BUG: BROKEN ISR ALLOCATION STYLE
  • //attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(63), ctIsr0, FALLING);
  • nope, you just bang it in there, thusly:
  • attachInterrupt(63, ctIsr1, FALLING);     Ok, fine fine, there was random interrupts going off without service routines,  no wonder it was jittery and crashing.
• and an obscure bug: on a Due, if you later on change the pinMode(), any attached interrupt detaches
  • bug report here https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/issues/1693
    • which got closed and moved to here https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-sam/issues/26
    • which is still open!
• Also, I'd had a problem with a Due board and terminal PCB, so I moved to the spare I bought for the job:
  • The SPARE had broken pin 63 (NB above)
  • and another broken pin I happened to be using as an output for testing timing. (!!)
• then, to add insult to injury, my main scope probe had come loose at the tip, resulting in intermittent connections. (!!!)

Yeah, last night was doomed.